Tuesday, June 30, 2015

Yesterday, I explained how I originally planned TruthQuest History (TQ). However, after finishing our first year of using TQ, I knew I needed to do some tweaking. This past year, we continued with TruthQuest, using American History for Young Students II. Again, I made a chart because I am a big picture kind of gal. Only this time, I tried to stick to resources I thought we may use rather than listing the reading from all possible spines. Column 1, listed the TQ Table of Contents. Columns 2-3 were readings from spines that I considered. (BTW, once implementing the plan, I assigned RileyAnn This Country of Ours and I did not end up using The Story of the Great Republic.) Columns 4-6 indicated books that aligned with other publishers. And, Column 7 included books listed in the TQ guide that I was considering from our personal library.

I then went back and highlighted potential Read Aloud books in yellow, books that could be assigned to RileyAnn in teal, and books that could be assigned to Ruben in green. Here is a sample of the first page of the chart...

American
History – 1800-1865

Table of Contents

This Country of Ours

Story of the Great
Republic

Beautiful Feet

Early American

Western Expansion

History
of California

Geography

Sonlight – SL

Bonnie’s Timeline –
BA

Veritas Press - VP

Time Traveler

19th
Century

&

Civil War

TQ Books on our
shelves

1.
Avocados. Yes! Avocados!

2.
New Capital – Washington, D.C.

X

Building
of Wash.

*Story
of the U.S. Capital

*Story
of the White House

*Child’s
History of Art

Tour
of Wash….

Art
of the Early Republic Era

3.
Land-a-Rama! Lewis & Clark

Ch
66-68

Ch
X

X

Louisiana
Purchase

The Louisiana Purchase – BA

*Louisiana
Purchase – BA

L
& C Expedition

*Of
Courage Undaunted: Across the Continent with Lewis and Clark

*The Lewis & Clark Expedition –
SL

*My Name is York – BA

*Lewis
& Clark, Explorers of the American West – BA

*How
We Crossed the West, The Adventures of Lewis & Clark

*Off
the Map – BA

*Meriwether Lewis

*Story
of the Lewis & Clark Expedition

*Meriwether
Lewis

*Lewis
& Clark: The Journey of the Corps of Discovery

*We
Were There with Lewis & Clark

*Bold
Journey

*Adventure
of Lew & Cla

Sacagawea

The
Story of Sacajawea, Guide to Lewis and Clark

Streams
to the River, River to the Sea – SL – BA

*Picture
Book of Sacagawea

*Winged Moccasins

Seaman,
Dog of Lewis

Seaman –
VP

Captain’s
Dog

Activities

The
Lewis & Clark Expedition Coloring Book

Lewis
& Clark for Kids

Zebulon
Pike

Based on the chart and again our three 12-week term study, I broke our history study into three sections: Term 1, Lewis & Clark, included TQ sections 1-9; Term 2, Western Expansion, included TQ sections 10-32; and Term 3, Civil War, included TQ sections 33-49 (end). From there, I tried to narrow my book choices, knowing we couldn't read everything listed. Next, I created another chart, in which I attempted to divide the books into daily readings. The first year I used TQ, we read a tremendous amount of books. This time around, I aimed to read fewer books, three per day, rather than four, but, making sure to read the best books. I focused heavily on books recommended in the Beautiful Feet guides and Sonlight. I thought scheduling each book would give me a better grasp on our time spent on history. However, part way through the first term, I started to feel the noose around my neck because if we missed a day, our whole schedule was off. Instead, from there out, I printed blank charts and filled in the reading as we went along. Here's a sample of this chart....

Week

Resource
Title

Monday

Tuesday

Wednesday

Thursday

Friday

1

The Story of Eli Whitney

Pg 5-16

17-25

26-33

34-49

50-62

Carry On, Mr. Bowditch

Ch 1

2

3

4

5

The Year of the
Horseless Carriage: 1801

Intro – p 24

A
Head Full of Notions

Ch 1-2

3-4

5-6

Benjamin
West & His Cat Grimalkin

Ch 1-2

2

The Story of Eli Whitney

Pg 63-69

70-83

84-98

99-117

118-132

Carry On, Mr. Bowditch

Ch 6

7

8

9

10

Benjamin
West & His Cat Grimalkin

Ch 3-4

5-6

7-8

9-10

11-12

3

The Story of Eli Whitney

Pg 133-150

151-162

163-170

171-178

179-end

Carry On, Mr. Bowditch

Ch 11

12

13

14

15

Benjamin
West & His Cat Grimalkin

Ch 13-14

15-16

17-18

19-20

21-end

4

Carry On, Mr. Bowditch

Ch 16

17

18

19

20

The Year of the
Horseless Carriage: 1801

27-31

32-42

The
Louisiana Purchase

1-14

15 – end

Open
the Door to Liberty

Whole

Diary of an American Boy

Intro-Ch 1

2

3

4

5

5

Carry On, Mr. Bowditch

Ch 21

22

23

24 (end)

The Year of the
Horseless Carriage: 1801

Pg 43-51

Lewis & Clark (Landmark – SL)

Ch 1

2

3

4

The
Lewis & Clark Expedition – Color Book

Pg 1-8

Diary of an American Boy

Ch 6

7

8

9

6

Lewis & Clark (Landmark – SL)

Ch 5

6

7

8

9

Sacajawea, Guide to Lewis & Clark

Ch 1

2

3

4

5

The
Lewis & Clark Expedition – Color Book

Pg 9-17

17-26

27-35

35-40

7

Lewis & Clark (Landmark – SL)

Ch 10

11

12

13

14 (end)

Sacajawea, Guide to Lewis & Clark

Ch 6

7

8

9

10 (end)

The
Lewis & Clark Expedition – Color Book

Pg 41-end

My
Name is York

Whole

The Year of the
Horseless Carriage: 1801

Pg 52-64

67-77

78-end

In addition, I altered our history notebooking process by no longer printing coloring sheets and pre-made notebooking pages. As an alternative, each student was given a composition notebook, in which they entered copy work, narrations, illustrations, maps, etc. This was more work on the child's part, hopefully helping them to build their own connections rather than me piecing it together for them.

Now, truth be told, we didn't finish our history study this year...GASP! ;-) There were so many great books in our Term 2, Western Expansion, that we decided to camp out long into Term 3. Therefore, we did not make it through the Civil War as I had originally planned. Instead, we've extended our history study into summer, tying up loose ends from Term 2 and dipping our toes into Term 3. This fall, we will pick up the Civil War using Beautiful Feet's new Modern American and World History guide.

You can view the books we did read using TQ AHFYS II, as well
as links to reviews and sample notebooking pages, in three separate
posts: Term 1, Term 2, and Term 3. In the third and final part of this series, I will attempt to pull my TQ planning all together, summarizing and reviewing things I've learned, as well as plans for implementing TQ history this fall.

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